Ming Ship Cannons

wigglywaffles said:

Does anyone know of any absurdly heavy super artillery used by the Ming?

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HackneyedScribe said:

Zheng Ruozeng's writing is the ChouHaiTuBian 筹海图编 (Apparently the MingShi copied this passage word for word)
It says: 其铳以铁为之长五六尺巨腹长颈腹有长孔以小铳五个轮流贮药安入腹中放之铳外又以朩包铁篐以防决裂海船舷下每边置四五个于船舱内暗放之他船相近经其一弹则船板打碎水进船漏以此横行海上他国无敌时因征海冦通事献铳一个并火药方此器曾于教塲中试之止可百步海船中之利器也守城亦可持以征战则无用矣后汪诚斋鋐为兵部尚书请于上铸造千馀发与三边其一种有朩架而可低可昻可左可右者中国原有此制不出于佛郎机. 每座约重二百筋用提铳三个每个约重三十筋用铅子一个每个约重十两
Translation:
This cannon is made of iron, and measures five or six feet in length. It has a large belly and a long barrel. At the bulge there is a long cavity, into which five smaller chambers can be inserted in rotation, and these contain the gunpowder for firing. The gun is wrapped on the outside with wooden staves and fastened with iron hoops to ensure that it does not split. Four or five of these cannon are concealed behind a ship’s bulwarks on each side, and if an opposing ship comes near, one single shot, finding its target will smash the hull and send the enemy to the bottom. With this arm one can sail about at will on the high seas, and no other country’s ships can match it.
When a cannon of this type, and its gunpowder formula, was submimtted (to the throne) by an officer from the campaign against the sea-pirates, the gun was tested on a parade-ground, and its range was found to be only 100 paces. But it was admittedly an effective weapon on shipboard, and it could also be used in the defence of city walls. However, it was not much good for carting about on open battlefields.
Later on, when Wang Chheng-Chai (Wang Hung) became Minister of War, he sought permission to cast more than a thousand of such cannon for issue to (defence posts on) the three frontiers. One type was mounted on a wooden stand, so that it could be lowered or raised, or turned to the left and to the right (for accurate aiming). This method of mounting guns was originally developed in China, and did not come in with the Portuguese.
Each (breech loading) cannon weights about 200 catties [260 lbs] , and its three chambers weight about 30 catties [36 pounds] each. The single lead shot which each one contains weighs about 10 liang [0.8125 lbs].

So altogether it weighs 296 pounds shooting a 0.8 pound ball, which is equivalent to the Type 2 folangji mentioned by Qi Jiguang (The Type 2 cannon above shoots a 10 liang ball, I made a typo by saying it's 12 liang)
I'm surprised that he claimed this would be capable of sinking ships, unless if they're very small ships.
It's hard to label this type of weapon from its contemporary European perspective, as it doesn't fit any one single category:

The Type 2 Folangji would have the weight of a Rabinet, firing a ball equivalent to that from a Falconet, with a gunpowder charge amount used by that of the Falcon, with the barrel length of a Minion.

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wigglywaffles said:

a cannon that fired over 40 pound shot cannon balls.

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HackneyedScribe said:

Thank you, that last link seems to explain it. It says that Qi made a revised version of the JiXiaoXinShu in 1584. I was using the earlier unrevised version.

The revised version says that the armament for each type of ship, from biggest to smallest:
2/1/1/1/0/0/0 Invincible, triumphing cannon (wudi shenfei pao 無敵神飛砲)
6/6/5/4/3/3/1 large folangji (da langji 大狼機)
6/6/4/4/2/1/0 hundred-bullet-cannons (baizichong 百子銃)
20/20/12/10/8/6/6 arquebuses (niaochong 鳥銃)
8/6/5/4/3/2/1 squad crew size (11 men per squad)

Compared with the version I used:
1/0/0 heavy outburst cannon (da fagong 大發貢)
6/4/2 large folangji (da folangji 大佛郎機)
3/3/3 cannons with bowl-shaped muzzles (wankoutong)
10/6/4 arquebuses (niaozui chong 鳥嘴銃)
5/4/3 squad crew size (11 men per squad)

It also translated 火砲 as "mines/bombs", which makes more sense under context of the passage. It literally means cannon in modern Chinese, but I suppose that's not all it could have meant during Qi Jiguang's time period.

So the updated version replaced the FaGong cannon with the much heavier WuDiShenFei cannon.
The 3 WanKouChong cannons are replaced with 6 BaiZiChong cannons (large swivel guns). Although the BaiZi literally means "Hundred Bullet", it is not firing grapeshot. It's called this because it could be "fired a hundred times without reloading", I assume this means it's a breech-loading musket.
The number of arquebuses also seemed to have increased by twice as well.

The source also mentions the Xihai Jinshi, a 1568 AD request from Yu Dayou for funds to build a fleet of 80 ships, in which "he itemizes the weapons the ships should be equipped with, as well as their cost."

8/8/6/4/4 iron folangji cannons (tie folangjichong 鉄佛朗機銃) / big cannons (dachong 大銃)
0/0/0/0/1 cast iron outburst cannon (shengtie fagong 生鉄發貢)
30/20/16/16/14 arquebuses (wuchong 烏銃)

Surprisingly the ship with the most powerful cannon was armed by the smallest ship, as it has 1 fagong cannon alongside 4 iron folangji cannons, although the biggest ships have 3 more cannons in total.
"In the end, only funds for ten of the smallest Dongzi ships were authorized."
In terms of cost of cannons the smallest ship was outfitted with more expensive cannons, as the fagong cannon (20 taels) cost nearly 4.4 times as much as one folangji (4 taels 5 mace).
So despite lacking cannons, the expenses in cannon for the smallest ship amounted to 38 taels yet for the biggest ship the cannon expenses totalled 36 taels.

The source also mentions that "Zheng Ruozeng and Mao Yuanyi (here probably copying from Zheng Ruozeng) claim that the cannons are very effective for sinking enemy ships. According to the two texts, a ship carried four to five folangji on each side of the ship. This total of eight or ten cannons is considerably more than the six folangji recorded in the Jixiao xinshu for the Fujian ship, but about the same number as in the Xihai jinshi"

As for the folangji itself, the article says: "In his updated Jixiao xinshu, Qi Jiguang explains that there are five different sized folangji, of which the largest three are suitable for naval battle (and the smallest is “only a toy”)."

I did a little more digging with this:

https://www.toutiao.com/article/6579921999202615815/?&source=m_redirect

一号佛郎机长八九尺,装火药一斤,每个铅子重一斤;二号佛郎机长六七尺,装火药十一两，每个铅子重十两;三 号佛郎机长四五尺，装火药六两，每个铅子重五两;四号佛郎机长二三尺，装火药三两半，每个铅子重三两;五号佛郎机长一尺，装火药五钱,每个铅子重三钱。一至三号佛郎机主要用于水战和攻守城寨战之用，四号用于野战。其射程均达百余丈远

Translation:
Type 1 Folangji is 8 to 9 chi long. (Each shot) uses 1 jin (1.3 pounds) of gunpowder, each projectile weighs 1 jin (1.3 pounds) in weight.
Type 2 Folangji is 6 to 7 chi long. (Each shot) uses 11 liang of gunpowder, each projectile weighs 12 liang
Type 3 Folangji is 4 to 5 chi long. (Each shot) uses 6 liang of gunpowder. Each projectile weighs 5 liang
Type 4 Folangji is 2 to 3 chi long. (Each shot) uses 3 and a half liang of gunpowder, each projectile weighs 3 liang
Type 5 Folangji is 1 chi long. (Each shot) uses 5 qian of gunpowder, each projectile weighs 3 qian.
Type 1 to 3 Folangjis are suitable for naval warfare or guarding cities.
Type 4 Folangji is suitable for field battles. Its range is over 100 zhang.

For the units of measurement: Ming Dynasty unit of measurement
1 jin or Catty (斤 or 觔) = 0.59 kilograms or ~1.3 pounds
1 liang or Tael (兩) = 36.87 grams or ~1.3 ounces
1 qian or Mace(錢) = 3.69 grams or ~0.13 ounces
1 fen or Candareen (分) = 0.369 grams or ~0.013 ounces

1 zhang (丈) = 3.2 metre or ~10.5 feet
1 ying zao chi (營造尺) = 32 centimetre or ~12.6 inches
1 zhou chi (周尺) = 22 centimetre or ~8.6 inches
For the purpose of determining weapon length, one chi usually refers to one ying zao chi. However zhou chi was sometimes selected by military authors in place of ying zao chi without warning, which often confuse modern readers.

I would have to tentatively disagree with what the author said in the end though: A fact the texts do not tell us is that ships equipped guns with different designs, size, and materials, ranging from a length from about 30 cm to about 80 cm. Even a single ship did not carry the same gun several times. When reading the texts – especially the lists – an image of the same weapon produced multiple times comes to mind, however the archaeological evidence shows that this is not true. Many, but not all guns, have a bulbous powder chamber; some have a lug around the powder chamber, some of the guns have a flared muzzle, some a straight one. Some were made of bronze, others of iron. This heterogeneity accords with early guns used ashore, as the list of early guns known to Needham and Chinese style guns in Vietnam analyzed by Sun Laichen show. No two weapons were exactly the same and equipping the ships was more of a patchwork.

I don't see how she can conclude this when the archaeolgical list she provided only shows 1 Ming era warship, albeit that warship had a Yuan era cannon. The sample size is too small, so what she says should be treated as a possibility rather than a factual statement. The rest of the shipwrecks dating to the Ming period are trade ships and cargo ships armed with cannons, in which case it shouldn't be a surprise that the cannons found aboard are a "patchwork".

For the Penglai shipwreck the author says:
In 1984 and 2005 archaeologists excavated four wrecks in total in Penglai 蓬萊, Shandong. Two of them, Penglai No. 1 (excavated in 1984) and Penglai No. 2 (excavated in 2005) were Chinese warships, which sunk around the mid or late Ming dynasty. The archaeologists discovered several weapons during the excavation of Penglai No. 1: a fragment of a bronze cannon with a bowl-shaped muzzle, two iron cannons, iron and stone cannonballs in various sizes, bottles filled with quicklime, an iron spearhead and a sword. Tang Zhiba assumes the production of the fragmented cannon to date to the late Yuan dynasty. The iron cannons have several rings around their barrels, measure 76 cm and 73 cm in length, and weigh 110 kg [242.5 pounds] and 74 kg [163 pounds] and their shape and size make them typical early Ming iron cannons. The quicklime bottles probably were bombs to be thrown onto the enemy ship and attest to the use of incendiary weapons

I would like the actual quote from the updated version of JiXiao XinShu if anyone has it available.

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